Monday, May 19, 2008

David Yepsen admits he is worthless.

In yesterday’s Des Moines register David Yepsen had a column entitled Some new candidate questions. “Much of the time, presidential kandidates are asked all the wrong questions. We media people are obsessed with poll questions, strategy and flag pins. Interest groups reflect their narrow agendas. Then there are the strange "boxers or briefs" types of questions.”

David, you just admitted to the terrible job you and kolleagues do in kovering politics, and it shouldn’t take a bunch of East Coast yuppies at the Harvard Kennedy School to tell you what kinds of questions we should be asking kandidates.

David, reporters like you are given special access to kandidates and insider information, you have a responsibility to ask the important questions, not succumb to the idiotic tendencies of our society.

Since we are discussing Yepsen, here is some interesting stuff in Linn Kounty he’s not covering, I know David it’s too far to drive and they don’t have a restaurant worthy of your presence.

Great Mentions & Trial Balloons

In 2002 Iowa Democrats made a huge stink about a komment a Republican kandidate running for the State House made about her opponent Swati Dandekar. The 2002 incident occurred in an “internal” campaign email from the candidate. Now six years later, a Linn County Democrat Nate Willems is doing basically the same thing to his Republican opponent Emma Nemecek, but are the Democrat up in arms about this? Nope.

Nate Willems website leads with his racial insinuation: “My wife and I are Iowans both by birth and by choice.” Nate Willems is obviously taking a swipe at Nemecek’s Filipino heritage. Such intolerance was not tolerated in 2002 and shouldn’t be tolerated in 2008 either.

Before the total comparison of apples to oranges begins, let's revisit the words of Karen Balderston, Dandekar's Republican opponent, when she wrote what she believed would remain a private note to a six-member conservative PAC:

"Without having had the growing up experience in Iowa, complete with the intrinsic basics of Midwest life, how is this person (Dandekar) adequately prepared to represent Midwest values and core beliefs, let alone understand and appreciate the constitutional rights guaranteed to us in writing by our Founding Fathers (not her Founding Fathers)? ... While I was growing up in Iowa, learning and reciting the pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, Swati was growing up in India under the still-existent caste system. How can that prepare her for legislating in Iowa or any other part of our great United States."

Making such statements proved to be political suicide for Balderston -- and not quickly forgotten by anyone in this area. Once the information in the email was made public (by the CR Gazette), it was the local GOP and not the Democrats that reacted by pulling all support from Balderston. Her comments were obscenely above the traditional campaign practice of stating one's love/residency/loyalty/family ties to the geographic area one hopes to represent.